If you're thinking of buying tickets to the Dallas debut of Hamilton as a Christmas present, you might want to make sure that the person who gets them can even pass through the door with the tickets in hand.

At this point, Woody Anderson, a 67-year-old retiree from Heath, is not 100 percent sure that his pair of mezzanine tickets, for which he paid $1,005.15 to a London-based website, will get him inside.

"You know, there's no way to know," Novice said. "There really isn't. And that's why we tell people that the only authorized way to purchase Hamilton tickets in Dallas is through our website or Ticketmaster," the only agency DSM has authorized to sell tickets.

So, if Anderson shows up at the door with his pair of tickets, there's no way to guarantee that he can walk inside?

A routine web search indicated Thursday that the so-called scalp market for Dallas performances of Hamilton, which arrives April 2 at the Music Hall at Fair Park, has already reached a fever pitch. Theatreland America, where Anderson says he bought his tickets, is offering tickets as high as $5,300 apiece.

Novice said the top ticket price for the best seat on the floor is $550 — which is, of course, the list price available to a "Verified Fan" who buys them the kosher way.

Dallas Summer Musicals is offering a price range of $75.50 to $195.50 a ticket that includes a select number of those $550 "premium" seats (plus taxes and fees). There will also be 40 $10 seats available by lottery for all performances (details at dallassummermusicals.org).

Fans lined up at the Music Hall at Fair Park for their chance to get tickets to Hamilton.

But again, Novice said he could not guarantee that a person who presents such tickets at the door — and Anderson could well be one of them — would be allowed to pass through. If the ticket taker scans his barcode and it passes the scan test, then, yes, he can pass through.

But if it doesn't, Hamilton wannabes who have already given money to a third-party seller may find themselves making a U-turn and heading back home. If the barcode scan labels them a reject, they will be turned away, Novice said, with their only recourse being to seek a refund from the agency that sold them the tickets.

"If someone buys their tickets from a third-party seller, we can't tell if they're legitimate or not," said Novice, who added that DSM is unable to refund tickets purchased from SeatGeek, Theatreland America or any other "third-party seller."

Such agencies are, he said, "part of the secondary market. That's why we've tried to be as clear as we can that the only way to be sure that your ticket is not fraudulent or that you're not paying well beyond the face value of the ticket is to buy your ticket" as a Verified Fan, through the DSM website or directly from Ticketmaster— which has its own resale platform.

"People who are using Ticketmaster can also use the Ticketmaster resale platform," Novice said.

Hamilton opened in New York, of course, but its touring productions have already appeared in other cities. Novice said the Verified Fan approach has "greatly reduced" the bogus ticket problem in cities where the touring productions have appeared.

"That's why Ticketmaster uses Verified Fan," Novice said, noting that such a process helps them limit "the number of tickets that make their way onto the secondary market."

One of the first performers to use the Verified Fan process was Bruce Springsteen, whose recent run of Broadway shows promised to yield astronomical ticket prices. As Rolling Stone magazine reported last year, Springsteen and fellow pop superstar Taylor Swift were the first to turn to the Verified Fan process to wage what the headline said was the first salvo in a "war" on scalpers and bots.

In Springsteen's case, it produced dramatic results, reducing the percentage of secondary-market sales from a peak of 20 percent — which Rolling Stone reported was the figure reached by third-party sellers during Springsteen's 2016 tour — to a remarkable low of three percent for his Broadway run.

A similar shrinking percentage is precisely what Dallas Summer Musicals is seeking, Novice said, by agreeing to the Verified Fan process.

"The truth is, anybody can be a ticket reseller," he said. "If you go through Verified Fan and you buy your tickets to Hamilton, you could turn around and tell your friends on Facebook that you're selling them for $2,000 apiece. Anybody can do it. However, please, we do not condone that."

If, he said, a patron goes through Ticketmaster or the DSM website, "then I know I've gotten the real thing. I just wouldn't want to take that risk."

Hamilton, in performanc

(Joan Marcus)

So, why did Anderson go through the London-based website?

He saw a web post telling him that Hamilton was coming to Dallas in the spring. Did he want to receive email alerts about Hamilton? He clicked yes. On Dec. 3, he got an email telling him that Hamilton tickets would soon go on sale, but because he had agreed to the email alerts, he could buy his early, according to the email. So, he gave them his credit card number.

Anderson got an email back telling him that he would be sitting in the mezzanine, in Section BB, Row K. He says the email also indicated that, if "they can't come up with the tickets, I would get my money back." Right there on its website, Theatreland America says it offers a "100 percent worry-free guarantee," adding: "We are a resale marketplace, not the ticket seller."

There was, however, a disclaimer in fine print at the end of the email.

It read in part:

"We are in no way associated with or authorized by the Music Hall at Fair Park and/or Hamilton and neither that entity nor any of its affiliates have licensed or endorsed us to sell tickets, goods and or services in conjunction with their events."

We attempted to reach Theatreland America via email, but did not hear back.

There is also another potential problem. We live, Novice says, in an age of duplicate tickets. For that reason, people "should never take a picture of their ticket and share it on Facebook. People can grab the barcode from the picture and use it for their own purposes. Protect your investment. Don't take pictures of your tickets."

Does Novice fear chaos if too many people show up at the door with what turn out to be illegitimate tickets?

"All I can say," he said with a chuckle, "is, I hope not. We'll have staff there to help people as much as we can, but we can't honor a ticket if it isn't legitimate. We will try to be as kind and friendly as we can, but for a situation we can't change, there isn't much we can do."

UPDATED at 6:29 p.m., December 20: This story has been updated with new details about Hamilton Dallas tickets offered through Ticketmaster's own resale program and the impact of the Verified Fan program in other cities where Hamilton's touring productions have performed.